Why did percival surrender singapore

He stayed in this job until the day World War One started. On the first day of the war on August 4 th , Percival joined the Officers Training Corps aged In he was sent to France and in fought at the Battle of the Somme. In September , he was badly wounded by shrapnel as he led his men into battle near Thiepval. Percival was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery.

While recovering from his wounds Percival was offered a full time commission. In October , he became a captain in the Essex Regiment and in was promoted to temporary major and then to temporary lieutenant colonel. During the Spring Offensive, Percival saved a French artillery unit from attack and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He was given a permanent rank of major and also awarded the DSO for his leadership. Between and , Percival attended the Staff College at Camberley.

Here Percival impressed the teaching staff. I very much doubt it. While other generals who were held captive by the Japanese, such as the American, General Jonathan Wainwright, had become public heroes, Percival found himself disparaged for his leadership in Malaya.

Unusual for a British lieutenant general, Percival was not knighted for his service to king and country. Percival most defiintely deserves greater credit. He warned Whitehall about the likelihood of the Japanese invasion. By surrendering he saved countless lives and damage to infrastructure.

The lack of troops, weapons and equipment let alone the infamous guns facing south were not his decisions. The rest were beaten, tortured, starved, and killed with appalling brutality over the next three years by the Japanese. Coupled with their other defeats, the reputation of the British Empire in the Far East was dealt a blow from which it never truly recovered.

In the following days and weeks Japanese soldiers went on an orgy of violence, killing tens of thousands of helpless civilians through various means such as: using them for target practice; burying them alive; skinning them alive…the list goes on. The local Chinese population suffered the worst of these atrocities, but suffice to say, Singapore was not a safe place after the Japanese moved in. The available fleet shrank again and again, the time to rescue Singapore grew and grew.

It seems there was scant even no attention paid to the possibility of a land based invasion. Even the ground forces seemed lax, but probably reflected British and Commonwealth training and warfare doctrine at the time. So he instigated his own jungle training programme for his battalion. As a result, when the Japanese did invade, the Argylls became much in demand, they were over-used and by Slim River in January, were left with about 94 all ranks for duty.

So in my view, Percival was not perhaps any great shakes as a field general, but the way things were set up, resources available and mindset of the Army, if another general was in charge, the fall was going to happen anyway, sooner or later.

Remember, June , British troops were evacuated from Norway, May-June, , troops evacuated from Dunkirk and later under Operation Aerial, , evacuated from Cherbourg etc, North Africa early , evacuation from Greece, evacuation from Crete, British Army were able to retreat; Burma , British etc retreated back through Burma; Hong Kong — no possible evacuation, surrender; Singapore — very limited evacuation, not possible for bulk of forces, no retreat possible from the island; trapped, no water, no electric, no ammo plus large civilian population, no chance to be refugees.

This appears to be a reasonable assessment of the Singapore surrender with an inadequate non fighting general in command who was a clever staff officer but a poor leader.

We were also often told, as Singaporean citizens, that Percival was a coward in that he did not fight the Japanese and surrendered his massive army over to the Japanese.

I have also been told by my History teachers that the troops in Singapore had no idea how to operate the guns turning them and that the soldiers had no intention of dying on foreign soil. I think that therefore Percival did what he could though I still think that he could have lasted maybe a bit longer had Singapore been aided in either supplies or military aid.

If you look at it from a numbers standpoint, The Japanese were massively outnumbered but still possessed tanks which I think was very few or none for the British side. Click here to cancel reply. There are moments in military history that forever alter the flow of human events. Times when the very landscape appears to shift. In the annals of military history magazines, this is one of those moments. It changed the world more than any other single event in history.

There have been countless thousands of published works devoted to all or of it. WWII Quarterly, the hardcover journal of the Second World War that is not available in bookstores or on newsstands, and can only be obtained and collected through a personal subscription through the mail. Third Army Eighth Air Force. Grant Robert E. National Archives of Singapore. Retrieved from National Archives of Singapore website: www.

Singapore: Monsoon Books. London: Portrait, pp. Percival and the tragedy of Singapore. London: Macdonald and Co. S Tan, P. General Percival and the fall of Malaya, — A reassessment. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. The Chicago-born Disney began his career as an advertising cartoonist in Kansas City. After arriving in Hollywood in , he and his older brother Roy set up shop in the Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault.

Sign Up. Art, Literature, and Film History.